Multi-Tiered System of Supports

A framework that aligns Response to Instruction and Intervention with the Common Core State Standards and the systems necessary for academic, behavior, and social success.

What is a Multi-Tiered System of Support?

California’s MTSS focuses on aligning initiatives and resources within an educational organization to address the needs of all students. It is an integrated, comprehensive framework for local educational agencies (LEA) that aligns academic, behavioral, and social-emotional learning in a fully integrated system of support for the benefit of all students. MTSS offers the potential to create systematic change through intentional integration of services and supports to quickly identify and meet the needs of all students.

California’s vast and complex Prekindergarten through grade twelve (Prek–12) educational system requires a multifaceted approach that is scalable and sustainable. The California Department of Education’s (CDE) vision of “one coherent system of education” offers an opportunity to build the foundation for educational excellence. Through the use of Implementation Science, Universal Design for Learning, and the Whole Child approach, among other evidence-based interventions, MTSS affords a full range of academic, behavioral, and social support for all students to achieve.

View a quick primer video on MTSS (Video; 3:50), created by the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE), for an overview of MTSS.

RTI², PBIS, and MTSS

MTSS, Response to Instruction and Intervention (RtI²), and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) are often spoken of synonymously, and for those new to MTSS, it can be difficult to determine what people mean when these terms are used interchangeably. It is important to keep in mind, though, that MTSS is a framework for aligning resources and initiatives; it is a method of organization. As such, MTSS encompasses both RtI² and PBIS, and systematically addresses support for all students.

Since MTSS is a framework that brings together both RtI² and PBIS and aligns their supports to serve the whole child, it also relies on data gathering through universal screening, data-driven decision making, and problem solving teams, and focuses on content standards. MTSS aligns the entire system of initiatives, supports, and resources, and implements continuous improvement processes throughout the system.

In particular, MTSS assists LEAs in:

Promoting LEA participation in the focus to align the entire system of initiatives, supports, and resources

Relying on a problem-solving systems process and method to identify problems, develop interventions, and evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in a multi-tiered system of service delivery

Transforming the way LEAs provide support and setting higher expectations for all students through intentional integration of instruction and intervention services and supports so that systemic changes are sustainable and based on standards-aligned classroom instruction

Endorsing Universal Design for Learning
instructional strategies so that all students have opportunities for learning through differentiated content (i.e., teachers reacting responsively to a learner’s needs), processes, and products

Challenging all school staff to change the way in which they have traditionally worked both in and out of the classroom

Supporting high-quality standards and research-based, culturally and linguistically relevant instruction
with the belief that every student can learn and excel, including students of poverty, those who are gifted and high achievers, students with disabilities, English learners, and students from all ethnicities evident in the school and LEA cultures

Implementing a collaborative approach to analyze student data and work together in the intervention process

RtI² is an approach that focuses on individual students who are struggling academically and pulls together resources from the LEA, school, and community to promote students’ success before they fall behind. It is systematic and data-driven with tiered levels of intervention to benefit every student.

PBIS is an approach that focuses on the emotional and behavioral learning of students, which leads to an increase in engagement and a decrease in problematic behavior over time. It assists the LEA in adopting and organizing evidence-based behavioral interventions that improve social and emotional behavior outcomes for all students.

So, while RtI² focuses on academics and PBIS focuses on social and emotional learning, MTSS encompasses them all. It acts as a way of organizing supports within an LEA so that both the academic side and the social-emotional-learning side are aligned to serve the whole child.

Statewide Initiative

The focus of the Scaling Up MTSS Statewide (SUMS) Initiative is to develop resources for MTSS within an LEA that align the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional supports in an LEA in order to serve the whole child. It involves family and community engagement, administrative leadership, integrated education frameworks, and inclusive policy and practice.

Background

In 2015, Assembly Bill 104, Chapter 13, Statutes of 2015, appropriated $10,000,000 for Developing, Aligning, and Improving Systems of Academic and Behavioral Supports (ISABS). The CDE conducted a competitive grant process and awarded the funds to the OCDE for their SUMS proposal. In 2016, an additional $20,000,000, appropriated by Senate Bill 828, Chapter 29, Statutes 2016, augmented the original grant award. The purpose of the full $30,000,000 is to encourage LEAs to establish and align schoolwide, data-driven systems of academic and behavioral supports to more effectively meet the needs of California’s diverse learners in the most inclusive environment. The SUMS initiative enables the OCDE to develop and disseminate statewide resources and technical assistance for this purpose.

Additional information about the application process for the $30,000,000 is available below:

Current OCDE MTSS SUMS Funding

The OCDE has subcontracted with the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformatiom (SWIFT)
Technical Assistance Center at the University of Kansas and the Butte County Office of Education (Butte COE) to partner with the SUMS effort. The Butte COE will share professional learning resources through My Digital Chalkboard, as well as engage rural areas of the state to support their unique needs. SWIFT is a technical assistance center that builds school capacity to support all students both academically and behaviorally. The SWIFT staff supports the SUMS grant by providing technical assistance and professional learning opportunities to participating LEAs.

The OCDE will provide subgrants to LEAs to engage them in a process to assess their strengths, coordinate supports to their Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAP) and align their MTSS efforts with the eight state priorities. The OCDE is distributing the grant funding into three separate cohorts with up to $6,000,000 being awarded in each round of applications. For more information on applying for these funding opportunities, visit the OCDE’s RFA Web page.

Training and Resources

Training

The OCDE will be offering a capacity building series to help lay the foundation for successful MTSS implementation. Contact the coordinator, Cindy Toovey, for more information at ctoovey@ocde.us or Pam Tupy, Program Specialist at ptupy@ocde.us.

Resources

These national and state Web resources were selected on the basis of usefulness to beginning as well as advanced MTSS implementers in kindergarten through grade twelve contexts.